Ben Barba was on form during the Bulldogs' victory. Photograph: Renne McKay/Getty Images

Some results need an asterisk against them

Origin's pervasive influence over the NRL competition table ends this weekend and not a moment too soon. If anything underlines the unfairness of the current set-up of NRL teams being denied their best players during the Origin period it was Sunday afternoon's match between Canterbury and Melbourne, last season's grand finalists no less. With a full-complement of players this would have been what the AFL likes to call a "blockbuster" (admittedly the AFL uses the term with gay abandon—not that there's anything wrong with that), but minus Blue Ryan Hoffman and the holy-moly trinity of Maroons – Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk and Billy Slater – the Storm were no match for the Bulldogs, losing by the staggering score of 39-0. Yes, the Bulldogs were themselves missing a few players (but only one, Josh Morris, to Origin), but they'd never argue (or at least mean it if they did) that they were as hampered as the Storm. Apart from the points won and lost, for both sides the game itself will mean little.

The Sharks haven't stopped swimming

After Cronulla came under investigation by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority earlier this year there was every reason to believe the Sharks' season would be derailed before it even started. That they then lost five of their first seven matches only seemed to confirm that theory. But that was then. Even though the Asada investigation still hangs over them like a suspended anvil in a Road Runner cartoon, the Sharks have done well to put the swinging shadow of oblivion to one side and just get on with things – to the point where this weekend they snuck into the top four on the back of their seventh win in their past nine matches. The 19-18 win against the undermanned Broncos wasn't the prettiest (in fact, at times in the scoreless first half, it should have worn a hessian sack over its head and rung a bell to warn us off), and Sharks fans had to endure some tightening in the chest as their team put the cue in the rack a little early allowing the Broncos to get within a point, but a win's a win. And to the Sharks' credit, it was achieved without leading men Paul Gallen, Andrew Fifita, Luke Lewis, Anthony Tupou, Beau Ryan, and, for the most part, Wade Graham. What's more, it was achieved at a venue where, up until the weekend, the Sharks had won just two of 13. A cautionary note, however: the Sharks have enjoyed a pretty easy draw of late. Next weekend's match against the Roosters will be a tougher examination of their credentials.

Carney do it? Yes, he can

Mitchell Pearce is arguably the better defender, but Todd Carney's attacking prowess on the weekend reminded us why many would prefer he, and not Pearce, was the Blues' halfback for Wednesday night's Origin decider. After a scoreless first half it was the former bad-boy of league who seized the initiative, and he had a hand – and a boot – in all the Sharks' points. On the occasion of his 150th NRL match (it's not long ago you wondered if he'd ever play again), Carney inveigled Michael Gordon through a gap for a try, then he split the Broncos' line on halfway before speeding down field, drawing the fullback, and giving Jayson Bukuya a clear passage to the line. Following that, it was Carney's booming, swirling bomb that Corey Norman spilt gifting Sosaia Feki a four-pointer. Finally, it was Carney's field goal in the 75th minute that proved the difference. Few man-of-the-match awards are as easy to decide.

Staging is in vogue

The advent of video adjudication has certainly changed the game when it comes to the awarding (or not) of tries. But since it is also used to spot foul play in tackles it's now customary to see players stay down (whether they're actually hurt or not) to invite the video referee's intervention. On Friday night Scott Prince copped what he presumably thought was an illegal shot in a tackle and he stayed down long enough for (use your imagination here) the video referee to sigh deeply, get his feet off the desk, put down his newspaper, and rewind the video to check for anything untoward. Prince, meantime, was all but reclining, like you do by a riverbank on a sunny spring afternoon. In the end, no infraction was spotted, so no penalty was given, but at least Prince had a nice rest. League fans still have a crack at soccer for its propensity for amateur dramatics, and while staying down in the hope of receiving a penalty isn't, strictly speaking, a dive, it does have theatrical overtones. Every team does it, of course, but nevertheless it must have some old timers rolling their eyes, for back in their day you wouldn't stay down unless you'd taken an axe between the eyes. And even then, only if it was a sharp one.

Is promotion and relegation worth looking at in the future?

Further to last week's column which entertained the prospect of a Perth-based NRL side joining the competition, Five Things watched Parramatta lose 17-10 to Penrith on Saturday night and considered how much more meaningful the contest would have been (for the Eels, and for fans) were the Eels fighting to avoid relegation, a much bigger booby prize than a wooden kitchen implement used for beating the backsides of children in less enlightened times. If the NRL does, one day, become a 20-team (or more) competition the possibility of either a two-conference system or, much less likely, two divisions, might arise. You can well imagine the controversy that would be caused by the NRL's methods of deciding on the make up of the divisions, and you can imagine too that teams in division two might struggle to keep their fans and budgets in place, but a two-division competition would certainly maintain interest in the bottom half of the table long after the top teams have set sail for the finals.